Fact Check: No, Rahul Gandhi did not remove any tweets on Savarkar, right wing trolls made false claim

A Twitter user shared a post claiming Rahul Gandhi deleted his tweets on Savarkar after his grandson Ranjit Savarkar threatened to file an FIR against the Congress leader. In its investigation, the PTI Fact Check Desk found that Gandhi did not recently delete posts on Savarkar on his Twitter handle. The claim shared in the social media post was false. 

The claim was made amid Gandhi facing a backlash from several political parties and leaders over his recent remarks against Savarkar. After being sentenced to two years in jail by a Surat court for his “Modi surname” remark, Rahul Gandhi had said: “My name is not Savarkar. My name is Gandhi. And Gandhis don’t apologise.” Savarkar’s grandson Ranjit on Mar 27 lashed out at the Congress leader, saying that he would file an FIR against him for making baseless remarks and defaming his grandfather if he didn’t apologise.  

Claim

A Twitter user shared a post on March 28 claiming that Rahul Gandhi deleted tweets referring to late Indian politician Veer Savarkar following a backlash from his grandson Ranjit Savarkar. 

“#RahulGandhi has deleted all his tweets on #VeerSavarkar after Savarkar's grandson threatened to file an FIR against Rahul for his defamatory and baseless statements against Veer Savarkar,” read the post with over 330K views and nearly 3000 likes. 

Here is the link and archive link to the tweet and below is a screenshot of the same: 

Investigation

The Desk started the investigation by looking for similar claims on social media and came across a Twitter post shared on Mar 29. 

The user shared a screenshot of a Twitter search for a specific keyword related to Gandhi and Savarkar to back his claim that the former deleted his tweets referring to the late Indian politician. 

“डरो मत डरो मत चिल्लाकर राहुलजी थक गये। अब डर उनको लगने लगा है इस लिये राहुल जी ने सावरकर जी पर जितनी भी ट्वीट की है सब की सब हटा दी है। @RahulGandhi ये डर अच्छा लगा।” read the post. 

An English translation of the post read: “Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, Rahulji got tired of shouting. Now they feel scared; that’s why Rahul ji has deleted all the tweets on Savarkar ji. @RahulGandhi This fear felt good.”

The Desk conducted a customised Google search with the keyword “Rahul Gandhi deletes tweets on Savarkar” but found no such reports. 

The Desk then checked Rahul Gandhi’s Twitter activities on a website named Social Blade. Social Blade gives all users access to our public database, which, using advanced technology, can provide you with global analytics for any content creator on a platform like Twitter.

While scanning the website, the Desk found that Rahul Gandhi's total tweet count went up between Mar 27 (the day Ranjit Savarkar threatened to file an FIR) and Mar 30 (the day of publishing this article) three tweets. 

Here is the link to the Social Blade website, and below is a screenshot of the same: 

The Desk then scanned the Twitter handle of Rahul Gandhi, which corroborated this. 

Gandhi shared one Twitter post on Mar 27 and two on Mar 30. Below are the three posts he made: 

Had Rahul Gandhi deleted any tweet on or after March 27, it would have reflected on the Social Blade statistics, i.e., the total number of tweets would have gone down. 

The Desk then searched Google Cache to see if Gandhi deleted any tweet referring to Savarkar in the past, but couldn’t find any. 

Thus, the Desk concluded that while Gandhi referenced Savarkar in his speeches, there is a possibility that the Congress leader never posted Savarkar’s name in the text in any of his tweets to date. 

Here is the link to one such tweet by Rahul Gandhi with a video of him referring to Savarkar during the Bharat Jodo Yatra. 

Subsequently, PTI concluded that Gandhi did not delete any tweet referring to Savarkar, following a backlash from the latter’s grandson. 

Claim

Rahul Gandhi deleted tweets referring to Veer Savarkar following a backlash from his grandson. 

Fact

A social activity tracking website confirms that Rahul Gandhi did not delete any tweets in the recent past. 

Conclusion

Several Twitter users shared posts claiming that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi deleted tweets referring to Savarkar following a backlash from his grandson. PTI found in its investigation that Gandhi did not delete any tweet following Savarkar’s grandson’s threat of an FIR. The social media posts were shared with false claims.